Laura Bassi ...Who?

Lindsey Nagy Hood College

Frederick, Maryland

Laura’s Stats• Born October 1711 in Bologna, Italy

• Death 1778 • Age of 5 she was taught by

Father Lorenzo Stegani•Age of 13 was privately tutored

by Gaetano Tacconi•Child Prodigy

Patrons• Jacopo Beccari • Gabriele Manfredi • Giulio Alberoni • Prospero Lambertini

(Pope Benedict XIV)

The Great Year of 1732 March 26th

Became a voting member of the Bologna Academy of ScienceMay 12th Awarded a degree at the University of Bologna

April 17th Defended her set of 49 theses for the University of BolognaJune 27th Defended 12 more theses

October 29th University of Bologna grants her a lectureship

December 18th Bassi gives her first lecture

Early Teaching • First lecture – Newtonian physics

“De aqua corpore natuarili elemento aliorum corporum parte universi”

• Taught physics at the University

• Salary 500 lire annually

• Did not teach regularly

• Limited resources

Career Expansion

Spent 3 years studying advanced mathematics under

Gabriele Manfredi

1735 – Was given access to a special collection of books in the Vatican

Index Liborum Prohibitorium

1738 – Married Giovanni Guiseppe Veratti

Set-up laboratory in her own home to use conduct experiments and teach

Advancing Recognition • Full classes

• 1745 – she lobbies for a position as the 25th member of the Benedettina Academy within the Academy of Science formed by Pope Benedict XIV • 1746 – Voltaire writes to Bassi requesting to be a member of the Academy of Science

“Dear Madam, I have been wishing to journey to Bologna in order to be able one day to tell my countrymen I have seen Signora Bassi? There is not a Bassi in London, and I should be more happy to be a member of the Academy of Bologna than that of the English, although it has produced a Newton. If your protection should obtain for me this title, of which I am so ambitious, the gratitude of my heart will be equal to my admiration for yourself…”

Dissertations

Why did she not publish much of her

work?• Children

• Married life

• Did not seek recognition & fame

• What she did publish was in Latin

1757: “De problemate quodam hydrometrico”

1757: “De problemate quodam mechanico”

1791: “De immixto fluids aere” (presented in 1747)

1745: “De aeris compressione”

(presented in 1746)

Boyle’s Law: P ∙ V = k

Poetry

Recognition • 1200 lire salary in 1760• Appointed to the Chair of Experimental Physics at the Institute of Sciences in 1776

• Medal

• Street in Bologna

•Liceo Laura Bassi in Bologna, founded 1860

Special Thanks Hood College – Student Research Institute

Advisors: Dr. Kimber Tysdal & Dr. Betty MayfieldMelissa Barrick, Laura Printz, & Chelsea Sprankle

Pi Mu Epsilon, Maryland Delta Chapter University of Bologna

•Algarotti, F.C. (1739). Il newtonianismo per le dame, ovvero Dialoghi sopra la luce, i colori, e l’attrazione. A spese di Giambatista Pasquali, libraro e stampatore di Venezia. Napoli.•Algarotti, F.C. (1739). Sir Isaac Newton’s philosophy explain’d for the use of the ladies : in six dialogues on light and colours / from the Italian of sig. Algarotti.. London. •Bassi, L. (1732). Miscellanea (M. Cavazza & P. Bertucci, Eds.). Bologna: mss. •Bassi, L. (1757). “De problemate quodam hydrometrico.” De bononiensi scientiarum et artium Instituto atque Academia commentarii, 4, 61-73. •Bassi, L. (1757). “De problemate quodam mechanico.” De bononiensi scientiarum et artium Instituto atque Academia commentarii, 4, 74-79. •Bassi, L. & Canterzani, S. (1791). “De immixto fluids aere.” De bononiensi scientiarum et artium Instituto atque Academia commentarii, 7, 44-47. •Bassi, L. & Zanotti, F.M.. (1745). “De immixto fluids aere.” De bononiensi scientiarum et artium Instituto atque Academia commentarii , 2(1), 347-353. •Bochner, S. (1966). The Role of Mathematics in the Rise of Science. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. •Bologna, Instiutio magistrale. (1960). Studi e inediti. Bologna: 1960.•Buell, H.S.J. (1853). “Laura Maria Caterina Bassi.” Women’s Record. London. 204-205. •Cavazza, Marta. “Laura Bassi” Bologna Science Classics Online•Ceranski, B. (1996). Und sie furchtet sich vor niemandem: Die Physikerin Laura Bassi 1711-1778. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag.•Chandrasekhar, S. (1995). Newton’s Principia for the Common Reader. NewYork: Oxford University Press. •Cieslak-Golonka, M. & Morten, B. (2000). “The Women Scientists of Bologna.” American Scientist, 88(1), 68.•Elena, A. (1991) “In lode della filosofessa di Bologna: An Introduction to Laura Bassi” Isis, 82(3), 510-518.

References

•Findlen, P. (1993) “Science as a Career in Enlightenment Italy: The Strategies of Laura Bassi” Isis, 84(3), 441-469.•Findlen, P. (2003) “The Scientist’s Body: The Nature of a Woman Philosopher in Enlightenment Italy.” In L. Daston & G. Pomata (Eds.), The Faces of Nature in Enlightenment Europe (211-236). Berlin: BWV- Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag.•Garelli, A. (1883). Laura Bassi, biografia. Bologna. •Goldsmith, L.T. (1987). “Girl Prodigies, Some Evidence and Some Speculations.” Roeper Review , 10(2), 74-82.•Logan, G.B. (1999). “From Learned Ladies to Teachers of Men: Doctors of Philosophy.” Chap 8 in Italian Women in Science from the Renaissance to the Nineteenth Century. Proquest Digital Theses, University of Ottowa, Canada. •Logan, G.B. (1994) “The Desire to Contribute: An Eighteenth Century Italian Women in Science.” The American Historical Review, 99(3), 758-812.•Mazzotti, Massimo. (2004) “Newton for Ladies: gentility, gender,and radical culture.” British Journal for the History of Science, 37(2), 119-146.•Nies, K.A. (1999). “Laura Bassi: A Physicist Supported by the Church.” Retrieved June 14, 2007, from Hypatia Website: http://www.hypatiamaze.org/laura/bassi.html.•Oglive, M.B. (2000) “Laura Maria Caterina Bassi.” In Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science. (Vol. 1, pp.88- 89). New York. •Roero, C.S. (2004). “Gabriele Manfredi’s treatise De constructione aequationum differentialium primi gradus (1707).” Oberwolfach Report, 51, 2734-2737. •Schiebinger, L. (1993). “Women in Science: Historical Perspective.” In C.M. Urry, L. Danly, L.E. Sherbert, & S. Gonzaga (Eds.) Women at Work: A Meeting on the Status of Women in Astronomy (11-19). Maryland.

Bassi, L. (1757). “De problemate quodam hydrometrico.” De bononiensi scientiarum et artium Instituto atque Academia commentarii, 4, 61-73. Bassi, L. (1757). “De problemate quodam mechanico.” De bononiensi scientiarum et artium Instituto atque Academia commentarii, 4, 74-79. [Untitled photograph of Laura Bassi]. Retrieved July 8, 2007, from: http://www.edu.linkoping.se/berzelius/

Vetenskapskvinnan/bassiutskrift.htm. Subleyras, P.H. (18th Century). Benedictus XIV, Retrieved July 8, 2007, from: www.romancatholicism.org/beatus- andreas.htm. Sezanne, A. (1888). University of Bologna Seal, Retrieved July 12, 2007, from: http://www.answers.com/topic/history-of- european-research-universities. Consoli, A. (1732). Insignia, Retrieved July 12, 2007, from: http://www.euarchives.org/index.php3?sch=3&lng=en&pge= photo&cty=bologna&tmp=&nr=36. Huff, L. (2000). List of annual lectures, Retrieved July 12, 2007, from: http://www.americanscientist.org/template /AssetDetail/ assetid/14707/page/2;jsessionid=aaa5LVF0. [Untitled photograph of woman and child]. Retrieved July 17, 2007, from: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~jmd/. [Untitled photograph of Bassi’s bronze medal] Retrieved July 17, 2007, from:http://www.christophereimer.co.uk /images/m/9566.jpg.

Images (in order of appearance)